Who Invented the Camera?

Invention of the Camera

Aristotle made use of gaps between leaves and holes in a sieve to view partial images of the sun.

How does a Camera Work?

Go into a very dark room on a bright sunny day. Now make a small hole in a window cover and look at the wall opposite to that window. You would see magic! You would see everything outside the window, just turned upside down!

This magic is however nothing but simple science. All of you know that light travels in a straight line. Now what happens is that when some of the rays reflected from a bright object pass through a small hole, instead of scattering apart, they reform as an upside down image on a flat surface opposite to the hole.

History of the Camera

Camera Obscura History

The earliest mention of this type of device was by the Chinese philosopher Mozi in 400 B.C. He is said to have created the first inverted image formed by light rays passing through a pinhole into a darkened room.

The camera obscura was a device working on this principle, consisting of a room or a box with a hole on one side. The first camera obscuras were large rooms and were used for observing a solar eclipse.

The first portable camera obscura was built by Irish scientist Robert Boyle and his assistant Robert Hooke in the 1660s.

The First Photograph

The first photograph was taken in 1827 by a man named Joseph Niépce. However, the image required eight hours of light exposure and later faded. A few years later, a Frenchman, Louis Daguerre, partnered with Joseph Niépce and developed the process of creating permanent photographs known as Daguerreotype, in 1829.

Digicam invention

In 1975, Steven Sasson, an engineer at Kodak succeeded in building the very first digital camera in 1975. The camera weighed a colossal 3.6 kg and produced only black and white images. It took a tedious 23 seconds to successfully capture one image. This was the turning point in the history of cameras.